


Fire and Ice

by starstruck1986



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 05:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstruck1986/pseuds/starstruck1986
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warnings/Content: Mental Health Issues and setting, themes of suicide (drowning and self-immolation). Angst. Swearing. Pre-slash.<br/>Prompts: "They said there'd be snow at Christmas, they said there'd be Peace on Earth. Instead it just kept on raining. A veil of tears for the virgin birth."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire and Ice

** Fire and Ice **

"Ron, this will be your room whilst you stay with us. Is that okay?"

Her tone was the softly spoken, I'm-talking-to-a-madman tone with which everyone who had spoken to him since he'd done it had used, Ron recognised. He found himself torn between wanting to disappoint her and wanting to play up to his spanking new reputation as a lunatic. As ever, he felt that the wrong desire won out.

"It's fine, thank you."  
"You have a bed, and a nice view, and you're lucky, there's a bathroom over here for your private use. Unfortunately, for now, if you want to use it, you'll need to be supervised. Is that okay?"

Ron bit down the bitter scream which rose in his throat: _"None of this is okay, you stupid fucking hag."_

"I understand," he replied aloud, with a nod of his head; of course, who would let a lunatic near harmful things without supervision?  
"I'll let you get settled in. Unpack your things." She gestured to his few bags which had been transported to the room by magic on his arrival. "Your new Healers will be along in around half an hour to discuss your treatment and what to expect during your stay with us."  
"You talk like it's a hotel," Ron muttered bitterly, forgetting himself.

The blonde witch looked at him for a moment, sympathy pouring out of her eyes. "Some people find it easier to think of it that way. Very few patients stay here forever."

She smiled at him and hurried out of the room, leaving him feeling awful for intimidating her in her job.

"Everyone has to do something," he reminded himself, and looked around his new 'home'.

It was everything he had dreaded, and more. There were no bars on the windows of the wizarding world's separate mental health hospital, buried deep in the countryside, away from the 'normal' people –they didn't need them to keep their patients inside.

"Anyone who comes here knows there's no hope of help from the outside anyway." He breathed the words to himself.

There were no bars; the patients didn't want to get out, and visitors didn't want to get in. Ron sat down on his new bed and felt his wounds throb.

* * *

"Get off me!"

Ron closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying not to look at the disturbance which was going on in front of him. Someone had refused their medication and pushed a Mediwitch in trying to escape.

"Come, Mr Malfoy, please, don't make a scene. Come back to your room and we can talk about your feelings on your medication."  
"You know my feelings on them, I don't want them!"

Ron couldn't help but look after hearing _that_ name and hearing those words. He'd heard that after his trial, Draco Malfoy had been unwell and had all but withdrawn from wizarding society, along with his parents, but he'd never dreamt that -

"And what are you staring at, Weasley?" Grey eyes rounded on him, glittering with complete malice. "This must be marvellous for you, getting to gloat and rehabilitate all at the same time. Enjoying the show?"

Red blotches and wide eyes made the only Malfoy heir look unhinged and Ron was uncomfortable in the changes he saw. The boy's face, which had always been thin and pointed, was now gaunt and malnourished, and the rest of his body looked to be in the same condition.

"Enjoy this!"

Ron gasped as the lukewarm tea splashed into his face; it was all they were allowed, lukewarm liquids, so that no harm could be caused.

"Shame it isn't a bit hotter, eh?" Malfoy laughed, maniacally. "Might have burnt the ugliest part of you that you failed to when you set yourself on-"

His words cut off abruptly when someone from behind hit him with a stunning spell. There was a sick thud as his body landed on the floor and Ron sat there, tea dripping stupidly from his face, staring at his old enemy, who still hated him.

"Ron, I'm so sorry." The blonde witch who was on his caring team hurried over with a tea towel and began to clean his face.

Ron allowed her to, partly because he was still so shocked about what had happened with the tea, and because he had begged for his actions to be kept a secret. They clearly had not been when even Malfoy knew of them.

"He's had a bad day," the witch said softly, sitting down next to Ron and putting her hand on his forearm. "A very bad one. His father... they put his father in Azkaban today. But that's no excuse for humiliating you. I imagine he'll lose some privileges for that."  
"Let him keep them," Ron said rigidly, getting to his feet every bit as stiffly. "Let him keep whatever he has. No point in making him even more miserable than he already is."  
"That's very noble of you."  
"I'm not noble."

He said the words flatly and looked at the floor as he departed the dining room. He didn't want to meet the eyes of anyone else.

* * *

He watched through the window of his Mind Healer's office as the staff of the hospital put up Christmas decorations. They shared a joke and he saw them laughing, but could not hear the cause neither the result and his stomach squirmed. He hadn't heard a proper laugh in days.

Ron had been there for a week. He had awoken in St. Mungos on the 2nd of December, stayed there whilst his burns were healed, and then he had been shipped off to Benjy The Befuddled's Hospital for Magical Mental Maladies on the 4th. It was the 11th, or so the calenders kept telling him. Ron wondered if any time had really passed at all, and if it was all an elaborate ruse at his expense.

"Ron, I'm going to ask you one last time. Why did you set yourself on fire?"

He looked back at his Mind Healer, trying to ignore the Christmas decorations. He licked his lips and thought about how to answer.

"Because I wanted to die."

It was the best he could come up with. There was a sigh from his Mind Healer, a middle-aged wizard with a bald patch and glasses, and Ron knew why: because he had given the same answer in every counselling session for the seven days he had been at the Hospital.

"You'll tell me when you're ready," the Healer said finally, closing the file resting open in his lap. "One day, you're going to open your mouth, and it's going to come out faster than you can breathe, or think. You'll fall apart and I'm just trying to help you ease yourself to that point before you have to break, Ron."  
"Loads of people think I've already done that," Ron dismissed, standing up.  
"They aren't trained mental health professionals, and I am."  
"And what you say goes?" Ron asked, cocking a small smile.

The man smiled back at him. "Every day, you seem to come back to yourself a little more."  
"You don't know me," Ron muttered, and then wanted to kick himself for sounding like a churlish teenager.  
"No, but your family do, and I had them give me character profiles so that we might see how you progress."  
"So you've been in touch with them but none of them wanted to come and see me?" Ron glared.

Healer Morgan shifted his weight between his feet. "Ron, your family and friends are nearly breaking down our doors to come here and see you. But we have placed you under a no-visitation rule for three weeks."  
"What?" Ron gasped, horrified.  
"Our initial assessments showed that you become incredibly stressed and agitated when your family and friends were mentioned, or when we asked you questions about them. When we didn't mention them we found our sessions productive. I have a report in here," he shook the paper file, "Which says that when it was suggested that you might be allowed a visit from your brother, you immediately began to self-harm by picking desperately at your skin."  
"That's a lie!" Ron cried defiantly. "I never!"

The Healer looked at him patiently and said nothing. Ron glared harder at him.

"Even if I did, you have no right to keep them from me!" he threw finally.  
"Actually, I do. On your admission, which was willing as you signed the consent form, you signed a clause which gave us permission to use any possible means to aid your well-being. I'm doing that by giving you time to heal, away from those who know how to hurt you the easiest. Can't you see the benefit?"  
"No!" Ron cried, and stormed to the door.

He yanked it open and let it slam into the wall

"You're fucking insane!" he threw over his shoulder. "And you can't keep me here, I'm going home!"  
"Ron, calm down," Healer Morgan warned. "Please. Just come back to my office and sit down."  
"And take more of your potions?" Ron snarled.  
"No, to talk."  
"I DON'T WANT TO FUCKING TALK WITH YOU!" Ron bellowed down the hallway at the wizard. "I DON'T WANT TO TALK WITH ANY OF YOU ABOUT THIS: NOT MY FEELINGS, NOT WHY I DID WHAT I DID! ALL I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IS HOW DISAPPOINTED I AM THAT IT DIDN'T..." He punched the wall to his right "-FUCKING-" He punched harder. "WORK!" He slammed his forehead into the wall instead of his fist and pain exploded behind his eyes.

* * *

When Ron awoke, it felt like his head was full of cotton wool. He needed a drink, and fast, because his mouth tasted revolting. The room was dark when he opened his eyes with just faint, gentle light coming through the curtains. He could tell darkness was falling outside, too. He made to sit up but was dismayed to find his wrists held in soft, padded shackles to the sides of his bed. Ron let out a little gasp of disbelief and tested his foot. That, too, was fettered.

"Fuck," he whispered to himself.  
"Don't be scared," a soft voice said, to his right, and Ron looked, then jumped, and let out half a scream of fear before a cool hand clamped down over his mouth. "Shh, don't, I'm not supposed to be in here. I'll be in so much trouble if they find me."

Ron willed his pulse to slow down enough to think and focus on the speaker, trying to place the voice to the shadowy outline of a person sitting next to his bed.

"You've been asleep for five hours, they sedated you and put you in here after you hit your head on the wall. It's seven in the evening."  
"Who are you?" Ron murmured against the man's hand, oddly fearful of the stranger who had mercy over him.  
"You don't recognise me when I'm not calling you scum, Weasley?"  
"Malfoy?" Ron asked in horror, and opened his mouth to scream again.  
"Don't waste your energy. I'm not here to finish you off, though why you'd be bothered after what you did is beyond me."  
"There's a difference between killing yourself and someone else doing you in," Ron said thickly, and sniffed. "Why're you in here?"  
"Because I've woken up tied to the bed alone a few times and I know how bad it makes a man feel. I'm showing empathy," Draco finished, as if to hammer home the point of his humanity.  
"The tea incident?" Ron asked.  
"That, and a few times before."  
"I'm sorry," Ron said, and didn't know why.

Draco said nothing and Ron heard him lean back in his chair.

"Won't they notice that you're not in your room?" Ron wondered. "They seem to know everything about me."  
"Bowel movements and the amount of snot in your nose," Draco confirmed in a drawl. "They're like it with everybody... but... well, it's nice to be able to give them the slip, even just for a few minutes."  
"I'm surprised you're risking getting in shit for me," Ron said honestly.  
"So am I."

The sounds of the chair being pushed back filled the room and Ron wished he hadn't spoken, knowing just how lonely the room would feel when his company, even if it was that of a Malfoy, was gone.

"Evening, Weasley. I'm leaving now. Don't get up." The joke, even in a kind voice, still felt like a barb.  
"Draco-"

The door had closed before Ron could get his tongue around an appropriate form of thanks.

* * *

"Looks like snow," one of the Mediwitches said eagerly, looking out the window. "This place looks so lovely in the snow."  
"Ugh, I hate it though, when the Muggles drive their cars through it in the village and it goes all grey and horrible, and there are all those accidents and we have to stand back and not heal them so easily when you know they're going to go through awful things at their hospitals."

Ron listed to the witches' discussion as he slowly finished his dinner with his charmed fork. It was resolutely spearing food for him -if he touched it, it would turn to rubber. None of them were trusted with sharp objects.

_Sharp objects, lukewarm tea, supervised baths._

"Oh, Godric," Ron moaned, brushing the fork aside with his hand, turning it to rubber and allowing it to fall to his plate. A witch looked over at the alarm spell which had gone off at his touch. "I'm finished," he explained. "It wouldn't give up, that's all."  
"No problem." She smiled at him. "Do you want to go to the sitting room for a bit? There's a good fire in there tonight and I think a few of the others were talking about a game of chess."

It was said temptingly, as if someone had told her that it might be the right carrot to dangle in front of him.

"I think I'll just go back to my room," he said stubbornly. "I don't feel like seeing anyone else tonight."  
"Up to you," the Mediwitch trilled as she began to clear his dinner things. "Don't be a stranger."

Ron thought on her words as he trudged along the clinical corridors to his room. He loathed the place. He hated the smell and the way he smelled of it, he hated the taste of the food in it, and he hated the stupid little flecks of yellow in the linoleum flooring, because such a bright colour had no place being there, in that place of hell.

His fist clenched involuntarily and he wanted to punch something; he considered it as he walked, but as he turned the corner to where his room was, he heard something coming from another patient's room. It was more a howl of agony than any sob he'd ever heard. Nervous, he paused by the door and put his ear to it. Whoever was inside was clearly breaking their heart, or suffering the pain of already having done it. Swallowing, Ron wondered what he should do. He didn't want to run to the staff and tell tales on anyone who was having a bit of private misery, because he knew he'd hate it if someone did the same to him. He had spent most of the day in his room, however, and he had no idea if anyone had been confined to their bed. The thought of someone crying so pitifully whilst restrained turned his stomach.

He found it odd that it had been Draco Malfoy that had taught him about such humanity. It was that humanity which forced Ron to put his hand on the door handle and turn it, stepping forward into a bedroom lit by magical candles on the ceilings, the type that could not be touched nor manipulated by the room's inhabitant: Ron knew that because when he had tried to catch those hovering above his own bed, they had darted away from him, and his magic had proved fruitless on them.

The person in the bed, though not confined to it, was Draco himself. Ron nearly ran, but the blond didn't even seem to have registered his presence. Closing the door, he wondered if the sound would announce his presence, but there was nothing, and no response, as Malfoy rocked back and forth on his bed, tears streaming down his face.

"Malfoy?" Ron tried, staying by the door in case he had to make a hasty exit. "D'you want me to get someone?"

There was no answer, not even a shake of a platinum blond head, and Ron fell silent, simply watching the rhythmic rocking of Malfoy's body back and forth. He moved to the end of the bed and bent down to try and catch his eye but grey irises were trained firmly on the mattress.

"I think I'm going to go and get the Healers," Ron said worriedly, noticing the scratch marks on Malfoy's bare arms, clearly imparted by fingernails.  
"You dare," Malfoy gasped finally, not breaking from his movement or stopping the flow of tears. "Don't. You. Fucking. Dare."  
"Is there anything I can do?" Ron asked stupidly, and braced himself for an acid response.  
"Sit down."  
"What?"  
"Sit down," Draco repeated, in a whisper. "On the bed."

Ron hesitated, not sure if he would be helping or hindering.

"I need you to sit on the bed!" Draco said, more firmly.

His insistence forced Ron to hurry into action, and he clambered to sit at the end of the bed, facing Draco. He crossed his legs and tried to keep the tension from crippling his shoulders and neck.

"I know you're like me," Draco said, with a heavy sniff. "That you wish it had worked. That you wish you were dead instead of dealing with this... and Salazar knows now that you're uglier than ever before..." Another sniff gave him pause. "Trust a fucking Gryffindor to want to go out in a ball of flame, a scene, a drama."  
"It wasn't like that," Ron said, his voice tightening. "I was alone. I didn't want to be found."  
"Why did you choose such a painful method?" Draco asked scornfully, "If you didn't want the sympathy vote after you were gone?"

Ron stared at him, revulsion bubbling in his gut. He couldn't bear the thought of anyone thinking of him in such a way and wondered if that was what his family thought.

"I just... I just went a little bit mad." Ron shrugged his shoulders. "Before I did it, I had never thought about it before. Things were shit and I was depressed, but I didn't plan anything. I just... I just did it."

He was ashamed to feel his own eyes growing wet and hastily rubbed at them.

"I planned mine," Draco said, shaking his head. "I planned it down to the last detail. Which pond froze over the thickest, which was the deepest so that my body wouldn't be found..."  
"Ice?" Ron said. "You tried to drown yourself in a pond that had iced over?"

Draco nodded and kept on rocking. When Ron couldn't help from laughing, the blond looked up, scandalised.

"No, I'm not laughing at you... just... well, at us," Ron promised. "You... your hair. My hair. Fire and ice... and we tried to kill ourselves in the same descriptions of our hair... and of our personalities."

Malfoy surprised him with a slight snort of acknowledgement.

"I suppose that's true."  
"I think that's the first time you've ever said I'm right," Ron breathed.  
"That's also true."  
"Stop it, you might give me a heart attack in shock."

They looked at one another and Ron realised, with relief, that Draco had stopped rocking back and forth.

"Ron... do you think that we can be normal ever again?"

He found he couldn't answer, and not because of the complexity of the question. It was because it was the first time he could ever remember that Draco Malfoy had called him by his first name. He coughed and pretended to be thinking whilst he got over the shock.

"I can't," he said eventually. "Every morning I have to wake up and look at myself... and what I did. At least your method has left you perfect."  
"And you don't think that wasn't planned?" Draco laughed disbelievingly. "I am vain if I am nothing else."  
"Oh." Ron blinked and looked down at his legs.  
"But you... you were prepared to burn your body... to die so painfully. I admire you."  
"What?"  
"Because of what you chose to do."  
"I fucked it up, though, like I fuck everything else up."

Silence fell between them. The only sounds came from the flickering candles above them and, Ron realised, the rain hitting the window of Draco's room. He thought about how the Mediwitch hoping for snow would be disappointed and realised he cared about it.

"You don't belong in here," Draco said finally, unfolding his legs from their bent position; his feet narrowly missed Ron. They were grey and mottled with cold.  
"You should put some bloody socks on," he grunted. "And I don't think you belong in here either."

He got up off the bed and moved for the door.

"You don't have to go," Draco said, looking disappointed.  
"I do," Ron spoke softly. "Did you ever... did you ever think about life after the war? And how great it would be?"  
"That always depended on who won," Draco pointed out. "But yes... I suppose, they promised there would be peace. Rainbows. A white Christmas and all that. But all it's doing is raining and nobody is very peaceful. I hoped on your side it might be a bit better."  
"And then you saw me in here and I shattered your dreams."  
"And I think I shattered yours, too."

Ron said nothing, finding his throat far too thick to speak.

* * *

"I have something special for you."

Ron looked up warily at Healer Morgan's words and wondered where the man was going.

"You've been here two weeks and you've been handling the separation from your family tremendously. I am proud of the way you've been progressing, truly."  
"Apart from that little incident with the head smash," Ron said, dryly.  
"That was last week. This is this week," the Healer dismissed. "So, I thought you might appreciate some letters from them. You're under no pressure to read them if you don't want to, you don't even have to take them from me. But there there," he pointed to a pile on his desk. "If you want them."  
"I want them," Ron said, reaching for them.

He snatched them up and creased the parchment slightly in his firm grasp. "Can I go now?"  
"I don't see why not."

Speeding out of the office and through the corridors to his room, Ron felt his heart soaring for the first time since he had woken up in St. Mungos. He threw himself into the room and onto his bed, not caring if the door shut behind him. He carefully laid the letters out in a neat pattern, and looked at the handwriting on each, and tried to decipher whose was whose.

His mum's, his dad's, Bill's, Charlie's, Percy's, George's, Ginny's, Harry's, Hermione's. They had only written his name but it was enough. He could tell each of them.

There were nine letters, all there for him, waiting to be devoured. Ron extended his fingers to pick up his mother's letter, and then the wall hit him.

_What if they've just written to say they hate me for what I did?_

Despair crashed down on him from such a great height that Ron found himself unable to breathe; it was more painful than even the burning had been as the flames had licked at his skin and tried to carry him off to hell. His chest constricted and he choked in his throat, mouth gaping at the air for whatever respite he could get.

His skin, tightened by the burns that the Healers at St. Mungo's had so professionally healed and restored nearly to good again, seemed to close in, trapping him rigid on the bed and wringing every last ounce of air out of his lungs.

He didn't recognise the hands on his shoulders for what they were, at first, but only when a body moved in front of his vision did he understand that somebody was there and that they weren't a member of staff; it was another patient, he could tell by their clothes -soft, cotton clothes, suitable for day wear but suitable for falling asleep in at the same time.

"Shh." The whisper was soft and straight into his ear and then he felt hands caressing his hair and back, and arms holding onto him. "Shh, be quiet, or they'll come."

Ron hadn't even heard himself making a noise.

"Please, please stop, Ron. It's Draco. I'm here. I'm not leaving, just... shh... or they'll come and they'll sedate you and I'll have to go."  
"No!" Ron burst out, throwing his arms around the other man's body and locking them. "Can't. Can't be alone."

_Can't be alone._

The three words echoed in his mind and Ron stilled, letting his brain spin around them whilst everything else finally came to a halt.

_Can't be alone._

Wasn't that it, really? That being alone had driven him to fear and depression and thinking about the war and everything that had gone wrong and what he had done wrong and the people they had lost? That his relationship with Hermione had died a quick death, unlike the one he had tried to obtain for himself?

"Oh, _fuck_ ," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut and stuffing his face into whatever was underneath it.

He felt a pulse beating into his temple and the smell of a man infiltrated his nostrils once more. Hands were still stroking him, and he was held tight.

_Can't be alone._

"You aren't alone," Draco assured him. Ron wasn't aware that he had spoken aloud.

* * *

"What do you mean, you don't like mince pies?" Ron muffled, pastry flying from his mouth as he spoke.  
"I just don't," Draco said, shrugging his shoulders. "Mincemeat is just... odd."  
"You're odd," Ron said grumpily. He stretched his legs out in front of the fire of the communal sitting room.

They were alone. It was Christmas Eve and there was nobody else too afraid to go to bed.

"I know you're just sitting here with me because you don't want to wake up on Christmas morning in the loony bin," Draco said scornfully.  
"No, I'm here because it's warm and there are mince pies."  
"And you don't want to be alone."

Ron said nothing to that and stared at the fire. He could tell that the others found it odd that he could bear to be around fire at all after trying to burn himself to death. It held no emotion for him. He started with surprise when Draco's hand layered over his own and their fingers laced together.

"What're you doing?" he asked dumbly.  
"Does it bother you?"  
"Yes."  
"It bothers me too," Draco agreed, but didn't remove his hand.

Ron was utterly confused as the blond shuffled closer on the old, worn sofa which was one of four in the sitting area. He looked worriedly at the door, where a Mediwitch sat at a desk just outside, keeping an ear on them.

"I have something to apologise for," Draco said formally. "I... said that your burns had made you uglier than you ever were."  
"You were only telling the truth." Ron snorted.  
"No, I was being cruel, in my pain, I was trying to give you pain, but I was too gone to see that you'd already had enough."  
"Draco, it's fine. We hated one another outside the walls of this hell hole, so why should it be any different inside them?"  
"Because we know too much about one another now."  
"What?" Ron asked jerkily.  
"You've seen the worst of me." Draco kept his voice low. "And I've seen the worst of you. And... I've... you're attractive, Weasley. In your own way. You always have been. In a rugged sort of way."  
"Same as I always hated you for being attractive in a slimy, I-love-my-mirror kind of way."

Draco laughed. "It's true. I even tried to kill myself in a vain manner."  
"Draco... if you were really that vain, you would never have tried to do it in the first place."  
"I would have succeeded if it wasn't for those scumbag drug addicts who gave me away."  
"You were found by druggies?" Ron laughed.

Draco laughed again and leant closer. Ron swallowed nervously when the blond's head rested on his shoulder. Their hands were still joined.

"So, are you gay or what?"  
"I think you should get yourself a job as a negotiator," Draco answered sarcastically. "Your tact skills are second to none."  
"Bugger off."  
"I would, but then you'd fall apart again."  
"I wouldn't."  
"Why do you think you want to be around me all the time?"  
"Because of your sparkling wit and good looks."  
"Are _you_ gay, then?" Draco asked, the question full of smirk.

Ron didn't reply, chewing on his bottom lip instead.

"Sorry, I suppose that was too forward."  
"No... I just... is there a way of saying 'I'd love anyone who was stupid enough to love me first?' without sounding like an utter dickhead of a man?"  
"No. Dickhead."  
"Ouch." Ron grinned at the arm of the chair. "You might as well chop my balls off and put me in a skirt."  
"Well, some men do that, but it's not really my thing."

Ron stiffened as Draco lifted their hands so that they could look at them.

"I don't know what this is," the blond confessed. "And deep in my heart, I still hate you."  
"Charmed, I'm sure."  
"But I think I also kind of want you, and care for you, and Merlin knows I want you to be better and out of this place... and I want to be part of your life when that's the case."  
"Really?" Ron asked, surprised.  
"I understand that it would be hard... given the history... a war won't go away with two suicide attempts and an unhealthy emotional attachment to each other."

A clock on the mantelpiece chimed and they both jumped.

"Midnight."  
"Merry fucking Christmas," Ron muttered.

He was surprised when Draco was suddenly there, in front of him, and kissed him lightly on the lips.

"What're you-?"  
"Merry Christmas, Ron," Draco said, rising to his feet. "Will you be seeing your family tomorrow?"  
"Just my Mum and Dad... after the letters, they're still limiting me... but I need to see them so badly..." he shook his head.  
"Mother will be here at some point. But after that... could we spend the day together?"  
"I'd like that."

Draco gave him a small, sweet smile which staggered Ron. He had never thought Draco Malfoy could smile at anyone in such a way. That it was at him was almost too much.

"Night," Draco said, lifting his hand.  
"Night..."

Ron watched him go and looked at the empty doorway for long after the man had disappeared. He heard the Mediwitch humming a Yule carol under her breath in the corridor.

He looked at the fire.

_Can't be alone._

_-fin-_   



End file.
